Depicting Black Women, the Politics of Respectability, and HIV in Precious

Abstract

This article analyzes how Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire (2009) makes implicit the connection between Black women, welfare, and HIV when the lead character, Precious, an obese teenage mother, is eventually diagnosed as HIV positive. Building on scholarship that examines media representations of Black women living with HIV, this essay examines how Precious mediates respectability politics (a conservative strategy to counter racist constructions of Blackness, gender, sexuality, and class) in order to delineate racialized and gendered authenticity. We argue, by compartmentalizing Precious’s HIV diagnosis as simply another tragic life circumstance and inconsequential to her Black womanhood, the film forecloses possibilities to critically engage mediated depictions of low income Black women living with HIV. We consider the ways the film dismisses Precious’s HIV diagnosis in order to forefront her potential for respectability, thus designating her as deserving of welfare benefits.